Page 86 of I Will Ruin You

“Watching her movie.”

Bonnie nodded, like that was a good thing. “I have something I have to tell you,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, leading her to the table so she could take a seat.

“I need a drink of water.”

I ran the tap and filled two glasses. Bonnie drank half of hers and stared down at the table.

“I did a very dumb thing,” she whispered.

“Just tell me,” I said. “Whatever it is, we’ll sort it out.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it, like she wanted the words to come out but something was holding her back.

“You were right,” she said.

I knew it. She’d told Marta.

“I didn’t go see my sister,” she said. “She went back to work.”

That threw me. “Okay. So where did you go, then?”

“I went—”

The doorbell rang.

We both sighed. “Shit,” I said.

Rachel, in the family room nearby, shouted, “Someone’s at the door!”

“I’ll get it,” Bonnie said, and got up.

I heard her open the front door and say with surprise, “Oh, hi!” Some murmuring followed by Bonnie saying, “Yeah, sure, come on in.”

Seconds later she returned to the kitchen with her sister, Marta, in tow. I stood.

“Hi, Marta,” I said, and felt a worm turning around inside my gut. What had Bonnie said a second ago? “She went back to work.”

This is it. It’s over.

“Richard,” she said, nodding. Marta wasn’t the cheeriest person in the world, but you could usually find some trace of a smile on her face. But not today.

Bonnie said, “Can I get you something? A beer? Some coffee?”

“I’m good,” Marta said. “A beer’s tempting, but I’m on duty and all that.” She took a good look at me, at the bruise still visible on my right cheek and temple.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Stupid basketball thing,” I said. “So, you’re back on the job.” She nodded. “What’s up?”

“I’m investigating something that happened last night,” she said, leading into this slowly. “And it may be that I shouldn’t even be here, asking you anything about it. I should probably recuse myself from this. But then again, there might be a pretty simple explanation and handing this off to someone else wouldn’t even be necessary.”

“I don’t understand,” Bonnie said to her sister.

Marta let out a long breath. “I’m investigating a homicide. Someone by the name of William Finster—Billy, everyone called him.”

I could barely hear Bonnie’s sharp intake of breath. Surprise, no doubt. I thought it unlikely she’d also been googling stories about his demise today. I could sense her wanting to look at me, to exchange glances, to try to read into my expression whether this was news to me, but she could not. I could only imagine what she might be thinking, where her mind was going.